Lawless Sign Part Seven (Fiction)

Chapter 12: Completely Reordered Society

Vrecky Tomlinson leaned over the table and tried to out shout the nightclub’s pounding din with “Let me have the fifty bucks, Cody. Look at me. I’m all hagged out. I have facial hair. My boobs knock off my knees. I’m getting a snaggle tooth. Pretty soon I’ll have a wart on my nose. I’ll be going through menopause any minute. I need the money more than you do. Men will still pay to have sex with you. I don’t have that option.”

I triggered the Captain Meteorphone and it emitted a long, low flatulence.

Vrecky elbowed Reynold and said “You know what he is, don’t you? Most obvious gay hustler I have ever seen. Mister I- have-a-website-and-my-own-CD-and-custom-made-outfit-and- instrument from California,  but no obvious means of support. He sucks off trolls for a living, that’s what he does. He’s sold every orifice of his body, probably several times just today. I hope they’re all old, Cody. I hope they’re all middle aged married men with teen aged kids who smell of Ben Gay.”

I triggered the Captain Meteorphone and it emitted a long, low flatulence.

“I don’t care what he is,” Reynold shouted back to her. “You were late. He gets the fifty bucks. You’re lucky I still have that gig for you.”

“I had an emergency. I told you,” she explained.

“You always have an emergency,” Reynold said. “You are the single most miserable person I have ever met.”

A cowboy, a gypsy and a spaceman walk into a bar. The gypsy is trying to avoid playing the accordion. The cowboy is here to sell some boots. And the spaceman is mulling over how little he actually knows.  

The bar in question is the Neon Cow, a live music venue. We are in an enclosed dark brown wooden booth, kitty corner from a large tan bar. This was in what I would otherwise call a basement. The last song played and the din abruptly halted. A light went on fifteen feet away from us, illuminating a patch of tiled floor around a microphone.

Honey is parked on the roof of a building across the street. She’s still pulling to the right, but is otherwise air-worthy at slow speeds. I have just flown her here from a hospital on Devon Avenue. Honey did not show on radar screens at either O’Hare or Marseilles. I suppose that’s progress.

It is now 12:45 AM. Sitting across from me are Vrecky and Reynold. On my left is Pete, a heavy set man whom I have just met and who keeps getting up from the table and coming back. Pete is here to buy boots from Reynold and to pitch something at Vrecky.

Pete’s cell phone seems to be grafted to his ear. He gets up again and waves a finger at the smiling Reynold. Reynold touches the brim of his cowboy hat and rolls his wide brown eyes. The moment Pete waddled away, Reynold asked Vrecky “So does it still have all the keys?”

“You’re missing something here,” Vrecky said. In her hands was a narrow black bellows. She pressed the concertina in and then her hands came apart. A progression of pretty notes followed. “This is cute. This has potential.”

“It ain’t what Pete wants. It ain’t going to work,” Reynold said.

“How do you know it isn’t going to work?’ she said, shooting a look at Pete. “Why doesn’t Pete say? Why doesn’t Pete talk to people? Or do I have to be on the phone with him?”

Pete turned his back to her.

At the center of the table was a large black case. Vrecky brought it in with her, but had otherwise been trying to avoid it. Pete came back for a second, removed a piece of paper from his white short sleeve button down shirt, and pressed the paper flat on the box. With a tap he drew Vrecky’s attention to it and then orbited away.

“Great. He’s already got the van painted,” Vrecky mumbled.

Pete broke from his conversation for a second. “Yeah. The van’s already painted. Nice, no?”

“Does the van still stink of jizz and bong water?” Vrecky asked.

“It’s six dates so far,” Pete said before breaking away again.

“Six dates where?” Vrecky asked, in the direction of Pete, but she then looked at Reynold.

“Where do you think?” Reynold answered.

Vrecky listed “Duluth, Moline, Cedar Rapids—“

“—Duluth, Moline, Cedar Rapids, Speedway City, Fargo, Thunder Bay, just for starters,” Pete said, shot from amidst his other conversation.

“I liked you better when you were Cruise Ship Pete,” Vrecky said in Pete’s direction, but again turned to Reynold. “I liked him better when he was Cruise Ship Pete. This is Bowling Alley Pete.”

“Not Square Dance and Bowl this time,” Pete said. “New thing. Pete Jovovich Presents Polka Fusion. See, Polka Fusion.”

“Yes, I see. It’s very nice,” Vrecky said to Pete, looking down at the sheet. Then she again turned to Reynold, asking “What the hell is it?”

“He needs the accordion,” Reynold said.

“Then maybe he can buy it from me,” Vrecky said.

“Is good you play the accordion, no?” Pete said.

Vrecky replied “It’s not a curse, Pete.”

“Who think I could book so much for the accordion, no?” Pete said, then adding “Maybe Sioux Falls, maybe Allentown, maybe Regina, maybe, just maybe Fresno.”

“OOOOh, Fresno,” Vrecky slurred, I think sarcastically. “It sounds like a plague of accordion.”

Pete added “Don’t hold me to this but maybe Muncie, Fort Wayne, Cheyenne and Tacoma, too.”

“Sounds like a Black Plague of accordion,” she said. Again she asked Reynold “What the heck is he talking about?”

“Hey, you saw. He’s got the van painted,” Reynold said. “Three weeks. Four grand, I think.”

“I have a sling keyboard that has the accordion voice in it,” Vrecky said weakly as she started to open the case.

“Nah, you know,” Reynold said, his eyes tracing the motion of Vrecky’s fingers over the case’s latches. “But it’s good you still have the electric board. You may need it later this week.”

Vrecky hefted a larger bellows out of the case’s depths. On one half of the off white bellows was an arrangement of ivory buttons. The other half had a keyboard similar to that of a piano. She asked “Who needs the keys?”

Reynold said “You do. You and Captain Meteor. I don’t know what you two did at the store, but Cliff Fulton called me. There’s a reception for the Hardware Fixtures Association at the Pier. Their quartet had a conflict and had to bail. The director called Cliff,  Cliff called me. It’s three hours playing while an ice sculpture melts.”

Vrecky asked “Three hours playing what?”

“Whatever it was you guys were playing,” Reynold said. “The quartet was playing folk dance music or something like that. Did you guys play something like that?”

“I don’t think there are three hours worth of Romanian folk dances,” Vrecky said.

“It’s three hundred bucks. I will get back to you if you are interested,” Reynold said.

“Two hundred for me, one hundred for Cody,” Vrecky said.

“The quartet was only getting five hundred. I wrangled you an extra hundred, because of short notice. And trust me, I pitched the jazz band first, but they said that was a no go. If you don’t want it, as is, I’ll just show with the jazz trio and take my chances.” Reynold said.

“Four hundred for me, two hundred for Cody,” Vrecky said.

“Jazz trio it is,” Reynold said.

“Ok, I’ll take it,” Vrecky said.

Pete came back and looked Vrecky up and down, saying “Good. You still have the top hat and the vest?”

“Push up bra and the fish net stockings, too?” Vrecky asked.

“Yes. Like a magician’s assistant. With the accordion, good?” Pete said.

“Good for what, I wonder,” Vrecky said. “Is Olga going to sing in front of us?”

“No Olga!” Pete exclaimed, his red spackled face going sour. He started away again, barking at Reynold “Boots. Get boots.”

Vrecky turned to Reynold, asking “What did I say?”

“I guess Olga’s out,” Reynold said, sliding a long white box onto the table. He called to Pete “Now you’ve been walking around a lot today, right Pete?”

“Pete walking all day. Pete doing nothing but working all day, getting us jobs that pay,” Pete said, coming back. He started hopping on one foot, trying to get his shoe off. His head was tilted into his arm to hold the cell phone. Both Reynold and I shot up to steady him.

“Pete. Sit,” Vrecky said. And Pete complied.

Pete leaned back as Vrecky yanked his shoe off. He said “You see, sometimes Pete try too hard. But always keep trying. Otherwise nothing happen.”

“If it is to be, it is up to me,” I commented.

“You see, spaceman understands,” Pete said as Vrecky yanked his other shoe off. Reynold hovered in front of him with a pair of long leather green and gold boots.

“Yeah, what’s the spaceman’s part of this?” Vrecky asked, parting to let Reynold through.

The Captain Meteorphone issued a convincing short Ooom Pah Pah serenade.

Reynold and Pete smiled. Vrecky faked annoyance, saying “Cody, you could at least stand by your instrument when you play it. How did he do that?”

Pete stood up, settling into the green and gold boots. He seemed rather happy. “These ought to match my stage hat, no?”

“Yeah, they match,” Reynold said, somewhat in disgust. “Walk around in them a bit. You’re going to be standing in those for three hours at a crack, so make sure they don’t rub. Walk around.”

Pete started high stepping in a circle. He said to Vrecky “I need you in the top hat and accordion at Edward Fox 11:00 tomorrow.”

Vrecky asked “Which Edward Fox?”

“Milwaukee. Like last time,” Pete said. “This time, you sing.”

“I sing what?” Vrecky asked, then adding “Just me?”

“Just you for poster,” Pete said. “I have band in black cut out behind you and big orange circle and big green circle behind that and then ‘Polka Fusion’ in letters behind.”

“He’s talking about the poster,” Reynold explained. “Pete’s rolling on this. The poster has a silhouette of a band on it. You’re the only one in the foreground. It’s kind of a spot color sort of thing. Pete’s got the arrangements and sample disk and handbills done.  I’m going to have to pick them up from Kinkos tomorrow morning. Hal’s doing the posters at the screen print shop.”

Pete said to Vrecky “You sing this time. Polka music, Polka Fusion. Happy music. Everybody’s always happy in Polka, not like that Punk music you sing.”

Vrecky said “And yet, strangely, I will be singing in the exact same outfit.”

“Pretty close, come to think of it,” Reynold said. “I don’t think there’s much overlap in the audience, though.”

“Polka has audience, not like Punk,” Pete said. “All your Vrecky Tomlinson and Skank Punk is one album from twenty years ago in cut out bins all over the city. Polka everywhere. Even Pete has seven CDs all still in print, sold over the world wide.”

“Rub it in, Pete,” Vrecky said. “We cutting a CD for this wonderful tour of ours?”

“Olga has studio, so no. Maybe. We’ll see,” Pete said. “You still have base fiddle?”

“Yes, I do,” Vrecky said. “And the player can have it back for the reduced price of the four grand he owes me, plus a face full of mace.”

“Maybe we can get another guy?” Pete said.

“What about West Hollywood here?” Vrecky questioned, referring to me. “Can you pluck strings?”

Before I could answer, Reynold interjected “Finding a base guy isn’t a problem. If we need it. I don’t think the silhouette has a base on it.” Reynold then turned to me and asked “You rolling with this, Cap?”

Was I?

That was the second time I had been asked this question in the past few hours. At least on this occasion I had a fair idea of what a commitment entailed.

I was still mulling things over. Earlier this evening Windy and I had figured out how to get Honey out of the bank without wrecking the place. And Doctor Colbert was finally catching some sleep. I had been running a system check on Honey. Then Stan called. He sounded terrible.

He hadn’t found the girls. He hadn’t found any trace of his ex-wife. After a day of banging around, all he had was “It looks like the girls were both working for some sort of military firm. As receptionists or something like that. One of them was dating a Colonel. I have the name of it. American Unlimited Aerospace Quartermaster. I got there late. There’s supposed to be someone I can talk to tomorrow.”

“A.U.A.Q. That’s a division of Royce Cole Oil,” I said. “Don’t talk to them. You didn’t leave your name, did you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

I think he was just tired, but that still wasn’t good. “Did you tell them where you were staying?”

“No. I’m not staying anywhere yet.”

“No one followed you? No one is following you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I want you on the first flight out of—“

“—I’m gonna get a hotel. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Call me when you get to the hotel.”

“I will.”

“Call me if you have any problem at all.”

“What can you do?”

Good question. Making a super sonic, nape of the earth flight to Miami might be overselling Honey’s current capabilities. I went with “Just call. Promise me. Trust Captain Meteor.”

“Alright, Cap. I will. I do.”

It would be a pity to let Stan down, if something did happen. As I was attempting to get Honey flight ready, I asked Windy “What’s the range on that drive in the basement?”

Not that Windy knew this off the top of her head. Rather she had recently gone over the drive with Toovy’s tool. Her quick response was “Miami is out.”

“Flying Honey there is out right now, too,” I said. “I should have never let Stan go.”

“I’m not shooting your atoms to Miami, even if it did work,” Windy said. Her whisper was close, even though she was physically in the basement.

Why was I suggesting such a thing? We weren’t entirely sure how the drive functioned yet.

“Get out of it,” Windy ordered. “I’m going to try to move her into the alley.”

“I’m not going to be pleased if we blow Honey to smithereens,” I said, stepping out of the cockpit.

“Either it will do nothing or it will move.”

“Or the electric will blow out.”

“There is that.”

I watched as my queen of space became transparent and vanished in a mist. Then I sprinted to the back door and hung my head out into the alley. Thankfully, Honey was there. I reported “Worked.”

“Says here there’s something of a pull.”

Pull?

I got into the alley and settled behind Honey’s controls. She was perfect. If anything, her repairs had accelerated. It wasn’t until after I had popped her twenty feet up that I detected anything out of the ordinary. The “pull” the drive was registering was coming from the eight currently active and powered Zoom Tubes now operating in Chicago.

Six of the tubes were in the Roymarillo building, five of which were on the top floor. One was located about three blocks from the Roymarillo, also on Madison Street. The other two would require a bit more altitude for Honey’s sensors to pinpoint.

“Windy, can you see me?” I asked through the helmet. I had turned on Honey’s distortion field, which should have obscured her outline, at least when viewed from below.

“As long as it stays cloudy out, you should be fine. If you hit a clear patch, you’ll blot the stars. Watch air traffic,” were Windy’s instructions.

I didn’t intend to get much more than a hundred feet up. Just high enough for some sensor clarity. Then a call came in on my helmet.

It was Miles Nasus. “Elvis, ready to wake the dead?”

“Now?”

“They have them up from Paducah. It all depends on you, so tell me what’s a good time.”

“Now will do,” I answered. It was already dark out. There was no reason not to have a destination for Honey’s test flight. Nasus gave me the location and I told him I would meet him there.

The flight was uneventful. I did not exceed one hundred feet in altitude. My median was forty feet.  The current atmospheric conditions allowed for Honey to fly silently at speeds of up to twenty-five miles per hour. Spooking around is what Honey is designed to do. She’s more a stealth tank than anything else.

The destination on Devon Avenue was just inside a municipality called Lincolnwood. All up and down this block, on both sides of the street, were one story shops, most with large windows dominating their facades. These windows were haloed by fabric awnings, usually fashioned from two or more strips of different colors. Trees ran down the center of the sidewalk, planted at the intersections of concrete squares. With the exception of my destination, there was a clear uniformity to the district’s design.

The hospital was in the middle of the block, a six story structure made of brick encased in a sheath of tan concrete. It was as wide as three of the shops put together. At the center of the ground level were four glass doors, one right after another. This was the sole place that light from inside the hospital showed. All of the building’s other thin windows were black. The hospital’s name was slanted in unlit cursive letters across a side wall.

I landed on the roof, just far enough from the front so that Honey could not be detected from below. From the roof, I noted that the hospital’s small rear lot was surrounded by a tall fence capped in razor wire. Two white vans and two white cars, identical sets, were parked along where the fence met the alley. Eight other cars of various types were aligned with the hospital’s rear wall.

I got the impression that the place wasn’t open to the public. It seemed more like a compound or a prison than a hospital.

It was a ventilator hospital. Everyone in residence had been transferred from other hospitals for long term care.

I jumped off the side of the building and triggered the floaty belt. Having noiselessly touched down  in the causeway between the hospital and a neighboring shop, I made my way back to Devon Avenue and then across the street. After performing a brief visual and telepathic sweep, I hopped to the roof of a Tea and Teapot shop.

Old habits die hard.  I didn’t want Nasus and whomever he was showing with to see Honey or track how I got here. Once they arrived, I intended to just appear out of nowhere.

Nasus and Feldman soon appeared out of a black Lincoln which slid in to park in front of a store to the right of the hospital’s entrance. Both wore trench coats of different designs but the same near-black blue color. Feldman was just out of the car’s door when I came up behind him.

Nasus was also right out of the car, having just stepped up to the sidewalk. Suddenly spotting me, he said “That was quick.”

“No reason to keep you gentlemen waiting,” I said.

Stunned by my  proximity, Feldman jerked a glance over his shoulder. He then turned to face me. “Elvis? How is this Elvis? It’s clearly Flash Gordon. He looks like Buster Crabbe. Or Johnny Weissmuller. Even has wings on his helmet.”

I will have to take Feldman’s word on this. Nasus didn’t know who either of those actors were and was a little vague on who Flash Gordon was supposed to be. Windy had taken it upon herself to mass produce Cody’s face, so that is what I was wearing. I had my blast shield up. I extended my hand.

He shook my hand and introduced himself as “Myron Feldman, National Propulsion Laboratory. I am a colleague of the people who Colonel Nasus gave your box to.”

About half of that was true. Unknown to Nasus, Feldman had been his boss for the past four years. They had similar jobs. Whereas Nasus knew where the various clandestine operations were located, Feldman knew what the operations were.

I introduced myself. “Elvis Aaron Presley, ever-living king of rock and roll.”

“Wrong outfit, Elvis,” Feldman said. “You walk around Chicago dressed like this?”

“You would be surprised at how few people give me so much as a second look,” I explained.

Nasus added “That’s how he showed up at the office.”

Nasus had not described me to Feldman—most tellingly because Feldman had neglected to ask. But Feldman did have an idea of what I was supposed to look like. I wasn’t at all matching what he had been told.

Feldman was previously informed that an alien had wandered away from Royce Cole’s laboratory. Cole was known to have a large number of alien corpses in his lab and had been performing various experiments on them. For decades. Supposedly all of these aliens were dead. About five years ago Cole had reported to the powers that be that one of his corpses was missing. At length, Cole’s organization had given Feldman’s organization a fairly detailed description of this alien.

The alien they were looking for was Sulfur. The operating theory was that Sulfur was actually dead and that it was his equipment—his suit—that was doing all of the walking around. Fairly close examinations had been done of Sulfur, all of which concluded that there was nothing biologically alive about him. It was thought to be a very advanced machine, towing around a corpse. Part of the theory was modified, once Sulfur started lurking about in a cloak and carrying a scythe.

Or maybe he was what he seemed to be? If he wasn’t Death himself, he was one damn creative machine. The humans found him very disturbing. (Not that I didn’t.)

Making my acquaintance had left Feldman equal parts relieved and confused. Other new contingencies were now bounding through his mind.

Nasus had neglected to tell Feldman that I was telepathic. That was by design.

Having mind raped Feldman, it took me a little time to digest it. I will say this now: Leaving this entire issue and going off to play Polka Fusion has its attraction.

Feldman asked Nasus “Is the hospital expecting us?”

Nasus answered “Nedor Services made the arrangements. I assume so.”

Feldman wasn’t sure who we were about to meet. He had read a report five years ago which indicated that Royce Cole had wiped Nedor Services out to the man. Most convincingly, the report had come from Royce Cole. The photos Feldman had showed Nasus had come from this report.

We entered the hospital’s well-lit reception area. Eight people were standing behind a curved reception island that seemed normally suited for two. Two were blue clad nurses. The others were orderlies.

“Fifth floor,” one of the nurses said, rising and pointing to the room’s bank of twin, overly-large elevators. The reception room was smaller than one might expect. Much of the first floor was used for the storage of climate controlled fluids and tanks of various types.

The orderlies had previously cleared out the residents of the fifth floor. All anyone knew was that the hospital had received a considerable grant for the use of the floor for the next two days. The current occupants of the fifth floor had arrived two hours ago, in their own unmarked ambulances and with their own staff in tow. There were seven patients, all men, all middle thirties, all with military style haircuts. They had all been strapped down to roller beds. At least two of them seemed to be awake and aware. One of them had been babbling quite loudly.

Nothing like this had ever happened here before. The staff wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. And they weren’t sure what to make of the three of us, either.

Two spooks and the Man From Mars went to the elevator bank. Its doors receded. We went in and began a slow climb.

Feldman turned to me and said “We were able to get the box you sent us to function. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind?”

It didn’t matter if I minded or not. Feldman produced a tri-folded document from the breast pocket of his suit. It was a shot down blue print mechanical drawing. He explained “In keeping with the Flash Gordon theme, this does appear to be a rocket ship.”

I took the drawing from his hands. Assuming the scale was right, it was a bit pregnant, even for a capital freighter. Sulfur’s other notes had indicated that the ship was a custom build. This ship was a pointed cylinder, about three hundred yards deep and about two thousand yards from stem to stern. It did have tapered fins to its aft, which is what accounted for the Flash Gordon look. There was a possibility that it was set up for a water landing, or more likely, modified from a design that was. This ship had been configured to hold something rather large.

If this was Sulfur’s ship, it was just as primitive as I had first concluded. The rear engine array was missing some vital components: no amat gen, no magna gen, no mechanical energy distend unit. The engine was an atorec and an implosion gen—something akin to hurling yourself through space by discharging nuclear explosions behind you. I assume the explosions were shaped or extended in some way, but still, it was a dirty way to travel. If it had ever had any planetary motivation, those systems had been removed—probably to expand the cargo hold.

Dismissing my dismal appraisal of the vessel was its control center, which had a stock astroglance at its center. The astroglance controlled every aspect of the ship’s navigation directly. The brain box we had retrieved all of this information from was merely its secretary, its cabin boy.

Feldman pointed a finger to the center of the ship’s cargo hold. “We think that whatever ruptured the ship materialized right there. As you will see on the next page, it’s a fairly large object. Each of the four sections is a schematic match in dimension to the Great Pyramid. The four pyramids are joined at the top, in sort of an iron cross formation.”

I said “It was expected to materialize at the center of the hold. There was a factor miscalculation as to how large the object was.”

“Is that what happened to your ship?” Feldman asked.

I answered “That’s what happened to this ship. It seems.”

Feldman said “You know, we have gotten the box to talk quite a bit.”

I said “Say hello to it for me.”

“Perhaps we’re getting off on the wrong foot here,” Feldman said. “I assume the box has some function that it was supposed to perform.”

“It was supposed to be convincing,” I explained.

Feldman asked “Are you trying to convince me or am I trying to convince you? And of what?”

Nasus wasn’t talking, but I was doing this mostly on his behalf. He wasn’t in a position to get Feldman to spill anything.

“I can see no reason for us to have to be at an impasse,” I said.

“Absolutely. That’s what I am trying to convey. We are more than willing to hear you out,” Feldman said.

I said “I understand. That’s exactly what you are trying to say.”

All I had succeeded in doing was confusing Feldman. Serves me right for getting cute. Feldman looked at Cody’s big smiling face and assumed whatever the difficulty was had been resolved. He continued “There’s this symbol that keeps popping up. It’s on page three. Do you know what that hexagon means?”

“It’s the Lawless Sign. A hazard that cannot be navigated away from. I am in serious trouble and stay the hell away. You are utterly doomed if you go here,” I said.

Feldman thought about it for a moment and then commented “That’s not good.”

This was a bit of a slip on my part: “Sucks balls, Doctor Feldman.” (He had not said that he was a doctor. And I had no reason to suspect that he was. Error one, me.)

“Is it a continuing eminent threat?” Feldman asked.

I answered “I don’t know.”

“That does suck balls,” Feldman said. “Allow me to turn your attention back to the structure on page two, the four conjoined pyramids. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

I had seen dozens of those things. That didn’t mean that I knew what they were.

Nasus broke up the conversation with “Door.”

The doors slid apart. This floor was a u-shaped ward suite. The partitions between the bed stations had been stripped away. All seven men had been arranged, bed beside bed, along the wall directly past the nursing station ahead of us. As seemed to be the standard with this facility, it was extremely bright in here. And everything was white, from the desks to the walls to the cabinets.

We were immediately intercepted by a thin, elderly man wearing a teal lab coat. The bleached skinned man’s thick glasses had hearing aids built into the frames. His hand shook as he extended it in an unclear direction. “I’m Doctor Harold Torrey, the presiding physician here.”

He was that. Doctor Torrey also owned the hospital. He had seven hundred and fifty thousand good reasons for letting Nedor Services use this floor on such short notice, but not without some supervision. He was also the type of guy who wouldn’t expose his staff to any risks that he himself was unwilling to participate in. Although he had just shown up to watch the joint, Torrey had been allowed to examine the seven new patients.

It was from Torrey that I figured out what was going on. I knew exactly what was wrong with these men.

Nasus and Feldman weren’t sure what to do with Torrey. Neither had expected to see him. Nasus was concerned that the seventy plus year old doctor might be some sort of security problem. Feldman wasn’t quite as concerned, but had been caught flat-footed.

His hand having been left in the air, the whispy-haired Torrey snapped “Which one of you is Nasus?”

“I am, sir,” Miles said.

“I know every neurologist worth knowing in this city. And you’re not one of them,” Torrey said.

Myron at this point intercepted Torrey’s hand, saying “I’m Doctor Feldman.”

“ That’s nice. Where were you board certified and what in?” the old doctor snarled.

Myron started to explain “I am with the National Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena—“

“—Good for you! Go propel. Someplace else,” Torrey said. He turned to the woman at the desk behind him. “My dear lady, these men are taking you. They are wasting your time and money. The nerve of them! In my hospital!”

The thinly contoured woman alone at the desk was dressed in a smart blue business suit. She was blonde with short hair, somewhere in her early forties. Her name was Margo Pines and she was the owner of Nedor Services--or what remained of it. Her husband was the previous owner and had been one of the original nine men who had been affected. For the past four years she had been the custodian of the seven men in this room.

Feldman blurted “Doctor Torrey, this might be a matter requiring some secrecy—“

“--Ha! Tell that to the Lincolnwood police, while you’re spitting out your teeth. I look forward to watching the cops knock the smarmy off the lot of you,” Torrey said.

Torrey had used his pocket plunger and had seven of his burly orderlies on their way up the staircases, even as we spoke. Only he and I knew this. At the very least we were going to get the crap beaten out of us.

I stepped forward and said “I can appreciate your sentiments, Doctor Torrey. Poor Margo has really been put through the mill on this.”

Torrey turned to her and asked “Mrs. Pines, do you know this man?”

“No, I don’t,” she said, quietly. “And that’s not the type of person I would forget.”

“I am the person Mister Nasus told you about,” I said.

Torrey asked “This is the experimental operant conditioning specialist?”

“I’m from outer space,” I explained.

Torrey said “That’s taking foreign training to an extreme. A little hard to certify.”

“I could levitate,” I offered.

Torrey blurted “Really!”

I turned an end over end 360 while rotating in place. Taking an Indian position in mid air, I said “I am not going to administer drugs or take any invasive action.”

“You’re damn right you’re not,” Torrey snapped. “Now, stop that.”

I landed. In a bit of very poor timing, Myron Feldman stepped forward just as Torrey’s orderlies were showing. Feldman said “I believe Elvis has demonstrated his point.”

“He might have a purpose here. You do not,” Torrey said to Feldman and Nasus. Torrey just didn’t like the cut of Feldman’s jib. The doctor then turned to Margo and said “I can throw the lot of them out, if you like. It’s your call, my dear.”

“He’s already done more than the last dozen specialists I’ve hired,” she said softly.

That wasn’t entirely true. Two of the patients had been killed during a quack treatment, supposedly designed to snap them out of their states. One of them had been Margo’s husband.

“You may, of course, accompany me, Doctor Torrey,” I said.

“You may, of course, count on that,” Torrey parroted back.  He stepped into the elevator and hit the ‘stop’ button. Joining me again, he whirled to his orderlies and barked something in Polish.

I told Nasus and Feldman “I would stay right there.”

“Yeah, right, Elvis,” Nasus said. Both he and Feldman could read the orderlies’ faces.

As Torrey and I pushed past to join Margo at the nursing station, the orderlies formed a dense curve around the elevator. Nasus and Feldman were going nowhere.

Torrey waved Margo and myself into one of the few enclosed offices on the floor. It seemed to be a reading room. Torrey closed the door behind us, saying “Needless to say I don’t like this Mrs. Pines, but it is your money.”

Margo asked me “Are you really here to help, or are you a messenger?”

That question had a lot of context behind it. The long and short of it was that she thought Royce Cole had sent me.  

I told her “I know exactly what happened to these men. I am fairly sure that I can reverse the effect.”

“That was a most amazing circus trick you performed,” Torrey said. “That still doesn’t quite explain what you are and what you intend to do.”

“I have seen that weapon deployed before. I know how to reverse its effects,” I said, removing my right gauntlet. “I am not from Earth. In deference to both of your heart conditions, I will not show you my face. This should do.”

“Interesting prosthetic. Do the fingers move?” Torrey asked.

“How did you know I had a heart condition?” Margo asked.

“It should be interesting. It cost me a right arm. You know, I’ve done this twice now and screwed it up both times. The mechanical hand convinces no one of anything,” I said, removing the other gauntlet.

“He might have read it on your face, my dear. I would say he read my medical bracelet, but I’m not wearing it. Perhaps a demographic guess?” Torrey said to Margo. He then glanced at my hands and commented “Your hands are mismatched. Wake up on the wrong side of bed this morning?”

I turned to Margo and said “You don’t seem shocked by any of this.”

“More disappointed,” she said. “Nothing Royce Cole does surprises me.”

She was expecting some form of ultimatum. I told her “Royce Cole didn’t send me. I’m not one of his employees. He’s not a friend of mine. Quite the opposite, I think.”

She said “That scores all the points with me.”

“What’s this excretion across your knuckles?” Torrey asked. He was holding my wrist, attempting to measure my pulse. Doing so convinced him that I wasn’t just wearing some kind of elaborate costume.

“Zinc. Ointment. I’m trying to treat the red spots,” I said.

“Damnedest thing: you have the pulse of a bird,” Torrey said.

“I’m a cross between a bird and an amphibian. It’s a common archetype. Not on Earth, though,” I explained. I removed a nodule from my bandolier and handed it to him. “This contains fresh samples of all of my fluids and cell types.”

He asked “Always keep that handy?”

“You never know what an alien is going to ask for,” I said, unguardedly.

“You’ll have to show me how this opens. Never mind,” Torrey said, having suddenly figured out the nodule’s latch. “Even if you are what you seem to be, it still doesn’t explain what your medical specialty is.”

“I have cured Earth people of this twice within the week. Both subjects are still ambulatory. I have some twenty years experience with the weapon system involved and am carrying a defense against it. Other than that, my technical expertise is admittedly limited. My military operations specialty is pneumatics and fluid systems technician. Most of my career was spent as an operations officer in anti commerce raiding, an environment in which the deployment of this system is common.”

Margo asked “Did you do this to them? Was it your gun, or whatever?”

“No,” I answered. “I have never shot a human with it. I am not carrying the weapon. I think Royce Cole or whomever just found one. I don’t think he invented it. It’s a typical ship system, not usually man-portable. The first hand to hand version of it I just ran into the other day. But it is a common system. And I am sure that it is what is being used.”

“You don’t have one, but you’ve seen it. Or something like it. And you’ve treated two subjects, who have not relapsed over an unspecified period of time,” Torrey summed up. “That’s not nothing, but it does fall short of a proven remedy.”

“And how much?” Margo asked, referencing the price of my treatment.

I said “I’m not here to charge you. Or prove a concept. I think I can help. I don’t like the people who did this. That is all.”

I didn’t want to let on that I was conducting any form of investigation—or that I was here to hunt someone down. I was putting these people at enough risk as it was.

“If you can really do this, I’ll give you anything you want,” Margo said.

Doctor Torrey held up his hand and winced. “These men have had no quality of life for several years. But their condition does not seem to be degrading. Does this weapon wear off? Or can it cause further harm if left untreated?”

Stumped me. “I don’t know if it degrades their condition over time. Normally the person deploying the weapon would reverse its effect shortly afterward. To my knowledge, it does not wear off. It would depend on the setting. I would need to see them to determine what setting had been used.”

I already knew what setting had been used. I just needed to get close to them. And I didn’t want to give away that I was telepathic.

Torrey asked “Would you like to see their MRIs?”

“I wouldn’t know how to read them,” I said. “It shouldn’t show on their brain’s architecture. If the MRI was animated in some way, you might be able to see something.”

“An animated MRI?” Torrey asked.

“One that displays the image over a period of time, like a movie,” I said.

“That would be a lot of radiation. Have one of those on your sash here?” Torrey asked.

I said “No. I don’t have one of those. Anywhere.”

Margo asked Torrey “What do you think, doctor?”

“They’ve already lost several years. None of them have snapped out of it on their own. Let him look,” Torrey said. He turned to me and cautioned “I’ll be right at your side.”

Torrey clung so close, he was like having a third sleeve. Margo stayed half a pace behind us, hovering over my shoulder to the left.

As we approached, five of the men were seemingly asleep, all on their backs with their hands to their sides. One man, a burly, ash-haired, muscular type, was doing push ups on the floor. He hefted his thick body up and then clapped between each dip. Another man was sitting shock straight up in his bed, his eyes fixed forward.

The sitting man said, in the manner of a declaration “I am the imbecile puppet of plutocrats. I think and do what I am told. My country exists to exterminate and captivate. Any group I belong to is foul and vile. Nothing I say can be trusted. Only violence and hatred fill my dreams. There is no love in me. My heart is void, except for the extreme drive of treachery. I drink the blood of innocence. I defile with deed and thought, constantly and without remorse. The present I see is barren and the future I make polluted.  I am the sworn enemy of the living and the pure. I am spit spat from a pool of fools, sent forth because this is the best use for me. Nothing attached to me prospers or lives to do anything but to steal. I am here to drain life. Darkness suits me, is what I am, a spreading blot. Even my god is stupid.”

There was a reason I never used that setting.

Margo said softly “At first it’s funny. Then it’s shocking. It’s very dispiriting. I have a hard time with this. Seeing it day in and day out.”

Torrey asked “Well, what is it?”

“Someone doesn’t like the Authorian Empire very much. It’s a parody of the Authorian Pledge of Allegiance,” I said.  

“I mean, what causes it?” Torrey clarified. “Is it a drug? Something in their minds? A piece of machinery?”

“They don’t all say the same thing. I mean, most of them do. Or did. My husband used to go on about how he had squandered all of his talents and misused every opportunity. Kyle Stewart, who is asleep right now, talks about how his mother should have aborted him and something about torturing dogs,” Margo said.

“Even if they have the idea behind the words, not everyone has the verbal acuity to translate the dialog. Or Kyle and your husband were closer to the weapon than the others,” I said, voicing an educated guess. I then glanced down at the reading on my belt buckle and reported “This is all the same incident. They were only shot once. It’s an area of effect weapon.”

Margo said “I don’t know if this means their conditions have degraded, but they used to do everything together. Now they’re on all different schedules. These five are sleeping now, because that’s what they mostly do. But any one of them might erupt.”

Doctor Torrey added “It’s not actually sleep. They become comatose. Every five to seventeen hours they come out of it, eat, shave, use the bathroom, exercise, get into bed, belittle themselves loudly and go to sleep and then fade into a coma. What is it? A disease? Hypnotism?”

I was at the moment mystified, but not as to the cause of their ailment. Unlike the times I had used it in the factory or on Stan or Colbert, the instrument was displaying a string of readings over and over. Obviously, I didn’t want to trigger it if there was a chance any of the men here would drop dead from it. For the moment, what the word string meant escaped me. Somewhat distracted, I mumbled at Torrey “It’s a programmed electric current. We can program electricity. We can even program mechanical force. It’s one of our core technologies.”

“You can program electric currents and you have nothing better to do with it than stick it in a gun and shoot it at people!” Torrey exclaimed.

“You sound like my parents, doctor,” I said. It then occurred to me what was going on with my belt’s reading. It was giving me the weapon’s name, series number, serial number and date of manufacture. The device wasn’t guessing this time. It knew. It was ready to reverse the setting.

I hit the switch. Racing purple shadows flew and fled. And all seven men were instantly snapped out of it, awake and aware.

Allow me to halt my testimony for a moment. Unlike what transpired next, I would like to bask in my little victory here. If the god and gods in their heaven and heavens above and below not allowed my compulsion to jump through that portal on Tiamore, these seven men would have had ruined lives. The same for Colbert and Stan. That’s worth whatever heartache it may have caused Toovy. That’s worth forgoing whatever else I intended to do with my life. Yes, I may have caused four casualties. But I am up nine. I will take that ratio. I am where I should be. And if it is to be it is up to me.

Back in reality, the happy dance was yet to start. The purple shadows had not faded when I realized that I had just popped open a spring loaded can of charred and tarred worms.

The men who had snapped to were under the impression that they had just captured Royce Cole. They had slammed his scrawny figure into a black tube--very similar to the one that contained the walking thoughts in Colbert’s lab. These were not false thoughts. These were their immediate last memories. Having burst into Cole’s lair at the top of the Roymarillo Building, they engaged in a brief skirmish armed with special paddle like devices. All of them had been briefed on how to combat a walking thought. The mission could not have gone better. With Cole secured, their leader, Major Pines, was leading them into the next room—to grab the astroglance, a device which would make them all very wealthy men indeed.

And then they were here. They had no concept that any time had gone by. It was then and then it was now. The last thing that all of these men could remember is seeing the back of their second in command Captain MacFadden as he followed Pines through the door.

All of their eyes were open. The ash-haired man who had been doing push ups came to his feet. He looked directly at Margo and asked “Where is Major Pines?”

The room broke into a flurry of activity. I was doing some very fast telepathic fishing, hoping to find a phrase that only they knew. Something to tell them to shut up. Royce Cole’s handler, Myron Feldman, was in the elevator twenty feet away. The last thing they would want to do is blurt out how they had breached Cole’s security and who had tipped them off.

Within moments the orderlies from the elevators were among us. Doctor Torrey was ordering the partitions  to be replaced. He wanted the men in different rooms, wanted new work ups done on them.

Nasus and Feldman had broken contain. Margo was thanking both of them profusely. She had something else she wanted to say, but if she said it to Feldman, the jig was up. I caught her eye for a moment and waved at her.

I would have used the commotion to perhaps slip away, but I was the focus of it. The dreaded happy dance had erupted. (All aliens have them. You just have to endure them.) The private nurses who had been tending to these men for the past four years were taking turns hugging and kissing me. I had become pressed against a closet door.

Margo made a bee-line for me, thinking I had perhaps mouthed ‘help’. She laughed “Let the poor man breathe.” And then she hugged and kissed me. “Elvis, whatever you want. Anything!”

“Remember who your friends are,” I whispered.

“Certainly. Certainly,” she said.

“Can I borrow your cell phone?” I asked her.

After digging it out of her purse, she handed it to me. At that moment, Feldman put his hand on my shoulder. I immediately handed the phone back to her.

Feldman said “Good work, Elvis. Perhaps it would be best if we got out of everyone’s way.”

“Whatever you think is best, Doctor Feldman,” I replied.

Feldman wanted nothing more ominous than to encase me in a bureaucracy at this point. I do wonder what would have happened had I let him. At the least it might have saved Feldman from a rather dismal fate.

Regardless of how I portray this superficially, don’t get the wrong idea about Feldman. He’s a perfunctionary. If I was Feldman—and I’ve been close—I would be doing what he is doing. That we are at cross-purposes does not make him evil.

Just as Feldman and I were turning away from her, Margo received a call on her phone. Given what was going on at the time, she was going to let it roll over to messaging. She checked the number calling first.

The following flashed across the phone’s screen.

DO NOT TRUST

FELDMAN

ELVIS WILL

CALL YOU

LATER

It was the best I could do on short notice.

Doctor Torrey intercepted Feldman and I before the elevator. The old doctor said to me “Where the hell are you from?”

“Half Marble. I was born on Avant Frexis, in Arsenal City,” I answered.

“I’m not sure if this is a charade or a cover story,” Torrey said. “It’s pretty good, whatever it is.”

“Cover story? We’re not that creative,” Feldman said to Torrey. “What you see is what you get. Now in deference to Elvis’s safety, please keep what you have just seen under your hat.”

“That will be up to Mrs. Pines. Mostly. But I can see what you mean,” Torrey said. “One question. Was that radiation that you released?”

I answered “Check your detectors. I would say no.”

“That’s enough, Elvis,” Feldman said in a testy tone. He took one stride away and called out “Nasus! Nasus!”

Torrey asked “If it wasn’t radiation then what was it? The purple light?”

I answered “Outlaw Matter. It’s an element, found primarily in the proximity of objects which had disappeared into a scab universe. Or at least all of the stuff we have is from an event about one hundred and fifty years ago.” I was somewhat thinking aloud. I had not given that much thought to Outlaw Matter before. Its connection to scab universes and the Voliant Wave is not normally top of mind. “The emanation itself is clinging light, which is not on the spectrum of radioactivity. It’s similar to infra red light, but with a concave path order—“

“--Physics lesson over!” Myron emphatically interrupted. “Elvis, is that a military uniform that you are wearing or are you just the world’s most lost doorman?”

Taken aback, I said “It is a military uniform.”

“So you’re not some raving lunatic with pockets full of alien household products, just seeing how they work on Earth people, right? So there is some objective to what you’re doing? Some method, at least?” Feldman ranted.

“I was in the military, but now I am a monk. Like in Kung Fu. The television show,” I said.

“If it’s philosophy that you want to dispense, feel free,” Myron said. “If you’re here to transfer technology, we have a department for that. Performing medical experiments—any kind of experiments on the general population or outside of controlled areas—is not at all kosher. And it taxes my imagination that it would be kosher anywhere and for anyone. Unless you’re some sort of fascist sociopath—or so stuck on yourselves that you feel it’s your right to completely reorder our society at whim. Is that your action, Elvis?”

Nasus appeared at that moment. Not having heard any of our conversation, Nasus asked Feldman “What do you want to do here?”

“Leave. Assuming Elvis here comes in peace, that is,” Feldman said, then turning to Torrey. “Either I or someone like me will be by very shortly. Make sure no one leaves this building. Or else. Understand me?”

Torrey said “I believe so.”

A very long twelve seconds passed and then the elevator came.  Nasus, Feldman and myself went in. Then the doors sealed.

Feldman whispered “Who the hell sent you and what do they want?”

The truth, if I could voice it, was not my friend. I knew from the moment I stepped through that transmat on Tiamore that I was out of my depth. The only open question was scale.

Feldman was right. Toovy was right. Captain Meteor was a noble ghost. I am a person without a purpose, only a longing.

I could have leveled with the guy, but I don’t have the balls. I would go wander space for the next four years, but there are no Stucky’s out here to go wander between. I could have told them Sulfur, the dead alien whom I haven’t said “boo” to, sent me--I think. I could have told the guy I was with the Space Police and that I was tracking down the murderer of the population of Tiamore. Or I could have ripped off my Cody mask, grabbed Feldman by the shirt scruff and growled “Tell your boy Royce Cole that I am justice and I am coming for him! The dead of Tiamore are calling and I am the answer!”

What if Royce Cole didn’t do it? Or what if it was an accident? I was at least good enough at that moment to not compound the situation by lying or heaping on unfounded assertions. Mostly I was feeling sorry for myself—my favorite thing. Having nothing valid to say, I responded by blowing a little scripture: “I feel the call of Justice and she is my worship. The god and gods in their heaven and heavens, above and below, instill her in us first—first just to make things and then to make them right. Happenstance determines the size of your stride and the range of your concerns. To those whom the most is given, the most is expected--and to her first.”

Feldman instantly saw it for what it was and snapped “You tell Space Pope that you don’t spritz no holy water or fume out any incense until it’s gone through one of our spectrometers. If you’re on some Jesus trip, that’s fine. You want to walk on water, you do it at Argonne Laboratories first. Doing stuff like this is a good way to get yourself invited to guest on Oprah, not keep yourself out of formaldehyde. And I don’t mean ours. Going forward, I am expecting a certain degree of cooperation. Remember, you came to us. I can’t do you any good unless you cooperate.”

I said “I do not think we have to be at an impasse.”

“I hope not, Elvis,” Feldman said. “Ours is not a totalitarian society. But we dislike surprises. For various reasons. You will get an airing in due time. We’ll help you if we can. If it’s good for us. Please keep in mind that we are not toys. We are a real people with a real culture. We may be primitive. We may not be as smart as you are, but we are every bit as much alive.”

That was laying it on rather thick. So far, all I had done was cure the sick. It’s not like I was Gamera. This conversation would not have gone very far with Gamera.

We left the building without engaging in any further histrionics. Nasus and I halted on the sidewalk after Feldman said “I’ll be back” and bolted ahead to the car. He needed to make some urgent calls on his special phone.

Once Feldman had shut himself into the car, Nasus said to me “Now no matter what happens here, I’m still your exclusive worldwide agent, right?”

“You may have some problems counting our money, given where this is headed. Feldman is a piece of crap. He’s Royce Cole’s handler,” I said.

“That figures,” Nasus said. “Like all bad things, he blew in suddenly and unannounced.”

I said “The good news is that he hasn’t heard from Cole in four years, either. Despite what he has told you, someone did clean out Cole’s operations. But Feldman didn’t oversee that, which complicates matters. There is something else going on that Feldman isn’t very clear about. I am afraid this situation may heading in a direction that I cannot cleanly navigate through. My fear is that you too soon may be a casualty.”

“No, no, no. No casualty me. The golden boy must not die,” Nasus said.

“That’s the spirit! Until you can shed Feldman, let us do all of our communications through Greg Armstrong. In the mean time I need to discover the actual depth of this operation. Once I have a feel for what I am dealing with, I can check off objectives. At the least I want to locate and liberate as many of the innocent victims as I can. In the process, maybe I can expose this conspiracy or otherwise throw a massive spanner into its works. Nothing is going to bring back the people of Tiamore, but I at least need to aspire at preventing what happened to them from ever happening again. For my own satisfaction, there’s someone’s neck I would like to break. That’s assuming a single person is responsible and not a government.”

Nasus asked “You rolling with this, Cap?”

Since it was the same question, I gave both Nasus and Reynold the same answer “It seems like my best option. I need to check on some things, first.”

Nasus went on to report to Feldman that I just disappeared. With Reynold, I didn’t have the luxury of flying straight up into the trees.

Reynold said “Well if you’re going to be in, you need to be all in. Pete’s things might go a month, they might go several months. And you can’t bail on it or we can’t have you.”

I hope that’s not illustrative of my entire situation.

Reynold rose to trail off after Pete. It was time for them to dicker over the price of boots.

Vrecky flopped her floppy self down on the bench across from me.  “You up for playing three hours of Romanian dance music, again?”

“If you are. If there is three hours of it,” I answered.

“I think the quartet Reynold is talking about generally plays chamber music. We’re going to have to get together on this if we want the gig,” she said.

“We can discuss it as I am lugging the accordion back to your car.”

“Eek. You have a use!”

I put the Captain Meteorphone under my left arm and hefted the accordion case with my right. Vrecky trailed after me up the stairs, carrying her concertina. We exited at street level and I asked “Which way?”

“Oh, hell.”

She could not recall where her car was. Doing a little mental fishing, I prompted her with “Something pink. Flashing. You noticed the color off your sock when you got out of the car. A pink flashing light.”

“Right! The laundry!” she said, her brown eyes blinking up at me. “Nice mentalists act! Do you guess people’s weight, too?“

“136 pounds.”

“You know, you could be about fifteen pounds off on that, if you wanted o be a nice guy and no one would object,” she whispered. “Hell of a right arm you got there, Cody. You’re not even straining.”

“Steroids,” I told her.

We continued left and to the corner. All of the store signs were out. The only traffic passing us were cabs.

“Cliff Notes version: what’s the story, Cody?” she asked me.

“I came from Long Beach to enroll at the Old Town School of Folk Music and perhaps try out for the Second City Academy. Or Improv Olympic.”

“Knew it! Knew it,” she said. Vrecky did not, in point of fact, think I was a gay hustler. She thought I was a trust fund baby, which in her mind was actually slightly less respectable. Her and her band Skank had encountered quite a few of my kind during their tour of England. Normally us trust fund babies traveled with our own lights and made the other acts wait while we broke down our equipment. My only saving grace, in her eyes, was that I was acting alone. Normally us trust fund babies moved in packs.

Vrecky, of course, was the opposite of a trust fund baby. She had come to Chicago from Rockford twenty-five years ago with nothing more than forty dollars, a guitar and a dream of breaking into the folk scene. Through various turns she had become a punk singer, a music teacher and, on more than one occasion, had supported herself by being someone’s tush on the side. Today she had a one bedroom apartment in Uptown, $340.00 in a checking account and a 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 98.

Given that her car was white and roughly the size of Honey, I didn’t see how she could misplace it. We found it in a few blocks, listing next to a dry cleaner. At that point we had something of a set list down.

“Always wear the spaceman outfit?”

“It’s a character. I like to stay in my characters and evolve them.”

“Really!”

“Ok, the spaceman suit was clean.” I had to be careful in talking to her. Her breath was showing in the air and mine wasn’t. If I didn’t keep my hips turned correctly, it was possible she might discern that I was talking out of my belt.

“Wish my car was clean. Sorry about this,” she said, opening the cavernous auto’s back door. I wedged the accordion case upon several layers of stuff. She asked “How did you get here?”

“I took public transportation.”

“You’re going to be out of luck at this time of night. Do you need a lift?”

“Actually, I have a few other appointments this evening,” I said.  Actually, I had a few other appointments this evening. First, I wanted to get with Windy to see if she had pinpointed  where the other Zoom Tubes were. I also wanted to see if she had found any outlaw matter here on Earth. All of that would have to come before a trip to Doctor Colbert’s condo, where I hoped to pick up his back up computer system and perhaps his car.

Vrecky opened the driver’s side door, which leaked bits of paper in a flurry out. She slid behind the wheel and then started sifting through a mound of lapidary clutter next to her on the passenger seat.

I prompted her with “Pen is in the glove compartment. Pad of paper is in the red bucket by your foot.”

“I’ll give you my number. We need to get back to Reynold with something concrete or he’ll give the gig away.”

“Maybe we could pad it with show tunes and light rock?”

She handed me a slip of paper, saying “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Well, best of luck with whatever it is you’re doing at 1:20 in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

She turned the key and the car clicked. Her window rolled down. She said “It can’t be dead. The window rolled down. The opera light was on.”

“Pop the hood,” I advised.

She fumbled for something that she couldn’t find and probably didn’t work in the first place. I triggered my helmet and the hood popped. Noting my hand’s position on my helm, she said “Neat trick.”

“Please take but do not attempt to operate the Captain Meteorphone,” I said, handing it to her through the door.

Of course she nearly immediately depressed one of the keys. It played the tuba version of Heart and Soul softly. “Smartass,” she said.

I stepped to the front of the car as the hood rose open.

“What do you think is wrong with it?” she asked.

“Age.” I placed the hexagonal nut containing the outlaw matter on the car’s radiator.  Stepping aside, I  called back to her “Give it a moment.”

“You could at least jiggle some wires.”

“Trust Captain Meteor.”

“That’s a heck of an act you have there, Cody.”

I retrieved the nut and told her “Now.”

It started up and I closed the hood.

“What do you think was wrong with it?” she asked, handing me back my cumbersome instrument.

“It’s obsolete, ancient, damaged and neglected.”

“Other than that?”